


A Watch and a Fresh Pair of Socks

by Lady_Ganesh



Category: Monstrous Regiment - Terry Pratchett
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Retirement, Socks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-25
Updated: 2014-12-25
Packaged: 2018-03-03 10:17:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 422
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2847443
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lady_Ganesh/pseuds/Lady_Ganesh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jackrum's thoughts at retirement.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Watch and a Fresh Pair of Socks

**Author's Note:**

  * For [abluestocking](https://archiveofourown.org/users/abluestocking/gifts).



She'd joined, of course, for family; the hope of one, anyway. William, sweet Willie, had been kind and sweet and gentle, and she'd worried he wouldn't last two months without her. Kind and sweet and gentle was everything that Mrs. Jackrum had never been. She'd been broad and loud and strong as an ox. She'd never giggled or blushed. But he'd never minded. Borogravia had plenty of farm women who weren't kind, sweet or gentle.

He hadn't expected her to take to war so well, though. "Love," he said. "You've more skill at this than I do. You'll be a general while I'm still in the ranks."

But of course, she hadn't expected to be so much better at it that she lived, and he....

Well. She'd buried him. That was all.

So Willie was gone, and his wife went with him. Jackrum was free to become someone else. Perhaps who she'd been all along. She'd become a sergeant, and a damn good one at that. She'd made a lot of changes as she went. Given away a lot of socks.

If you'd asked Jackrum if the military had any room for mothers, she would have said no, without hesitation, yet there she was at her retirement, surrounded by soldiers she'd made into men. Some of them had gone back to being women. Some had died. She wasn't sure about all of them, in the end. You lost track after a while, and she wasn't getting any younger. But soldiers, she'd mothered enough of those. More than she'd kept count of, though she remembered all their names well enough.

She supposed she had been kind after all, in her way. Never gentle or sweet, though. Every soldier had their limits.

Sweet Willie, he would have been impressed. Never a general, but something else. Something far more useful, certainly.

She wasn't sure he would have approved of the skirts, though. 

They'd given her a watch. Perks had been in charge of that, she was certain. Keen-eyed, that Perks. Thoughtful. Might be a sergeant herself, someday. "We fight for our families," the inscription had said. That had been true enough, Jackrum supposed. Perks for that brother of hers, and Jackrum first for Willie, then for that babby at home. And then...for that other family she'd surrounded herself with, those girls turned soldiers, socks firmly in place.

It hadn't been a bad career after all, really.

And hell, when she finally passed on...what she wouldn't give to see the looks on their faces.


End file.
